Australian shares were geared to rise at the open on Wednesday, with technology stocks seen gaining, as their Wall Street peers strengthened overnight.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq hit a record high for the fifth time in a row in the last session, helped by gains in Apple, Amazon.com and Alphabet

The local share price index futures rose 0.1%, a 59.2-point discount to the underlying S&P/ASX 200 index close. The benchmark fell 0.9% on Tuesday.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index rose 0.3% by 2126 GMT.